SYDNEY, Aug 7 (Reuters) - The Commonwealth Bank of Australia said on Monday a software “coding error” was responsible for the “vast majority” of the anti-money laundering law breaches it was accused of last week.

The Australian government last Thursday accused the country’s biggest mortgage lender of widespread breaches of money-laundering and counter-terrorism financing rules, alleging the bank failed to report suspicious deposits made at some Automatic Teller Machines.

The bank on Monday said the coding error occurred after a software update was installed on the machines in 2012. “The vast majority of the reporting failures alleged in the statement of claim (approximately 53,000) relate specifically to this coding error,” CommBank said in a statement. (Reporting by Tom Westbrook; Editing by Susan Fenton)